How long before the creationists use this as an example of intelligent design so god must exist this time wah wah wah.

Ha, probably not long. Creationists are very good at taking any new scientific discovery in a pathetic attempt to "prove" intelligent design. I can actually see this as becoming their "strongest argument" yet.

yasmaan at 10:13 PM September 14, 2013A major correction needed to this article.If we have developed the technology which shows that nature had gears in their conception, we should humble ourself and acknowledge that the Allwise Creator who is known as Yahweh, Jehovah and Ya Allah is the Creator of everything.We should be bold enough to dismiss Evolution as nothing more than an Evil notion, the devel's whisper which curtailed the happy state of existence that our Prime Parents Adam aand Eve enjoyed in the Garden.We should not get ahead ofourselves and make a ludicrous claim that nature evolved gears.

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"Great moments are born from great opportunities." Herb Brooks

I edit a lot of my posts. The reason being it to add content or to correct grammar/wording. All edits to remove wording get a strike through through the wording.

God is a big hairy meanie with zits, bad breath and alopecia therefor God does not exist, NO WAY especially the big old, old ancient desert bible god, coz he kills innocent baby lambs and white fur seals on the Sabbath. Atheism 101

Why doesn't bending down to drink explode their brains with the rush of blood and like wise when they stand up quickly to avoid attack? How did that evolve?

If the reason is to eat leaves, why have they stopped growing? There are taller trees???

« Last Edit: September 29, 2013, 02:06:24 AM by Crowbar »

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"I want a medical amputation!!"

Apotemnophiliacs Unite -

God is a big hairy meanie with zits, bad breath and alopecia therefor God does not exist, NO WAY especially the big old, old ancient desert bible god, coz he kills innocent baby lambs and white fur seals on the Sabbath. Atheism 101

What is the definition of an educated person? Someone who agrees with you that it designed itself?

Definition would be: a person with an education, likely an advanced one.

Point being that an "educated person" would not say "God did it".

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I mean people who have actually studied the research of others, in the endeavor of understanding their field of study. This usually means going to school. Christians do this in large numbers, and tend to disagree with you.

If their education is in law or in classical literature, then it's not a relevant education.

If their education is in paleontology, biology, etc. - fields where they actually study how populations of insects change - then if they still believe a god to have been involved, they have the education to explain why this is.

This really shouldn't have to be explained to you.

Educated Christians tend not to invoke magical explanations for things in the world. It has a long record of total failure. Example: Lightning being caused by the Prince of Power of the Air (aka Satan) rather than by static electricity. Every time humans have come to understand how something operates, it ends up being by natural processes. Supernaturalism overlaps completely with our ignorance.

So if I can find people with an advanced education who believe God created these insects with gears, what happens next?

You can disregard their claim, as "God did it" is not a valid answer for anything, ever.However, as you are a theist, i can assume that you believe "everything ever" was designed, or made from god.

One issue here that always bugs me, if us atheists were made by god, destined to hell, why do you worship this monster who does so?

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I see pure intelligent design and atheists see blind random dumb luck.

Actually, no, most atheists don't see blind random dumb luck. What they see is a response to evolutionary pressures, which aren't random. "Adapt or die" is decidedly non-random. If an organism doesn't adapt well to its environment, it is much more likely to die (due to not finding food or being able to evade predators). The only random aspect of evolution is mutation, and those are a pure crapshoot.

Quote from: skeptic54768

Can we see the fossils of its ancestors? Do we see half-gears in those ancestor fossils? Or are the gears fully formed in the ancestor fossils?

Suggestion, use Google and look it up yourself, since you're curious.

However, those are probably the result of a progressive series of adaptations. For example, progressively less and less gear teeth in planthopper nymph legs as you go backwards in time, until you end up with nymph legs that don't have any. It's the presence of the gear teeth (which, notably, go further back than is strictly necessary in order to enable the leg-locking) that makes this seem special, but there's no guarantee that it's actually meaningful.

Actually, no, most atheists don't see blind random dumb luck. What they see is a response to evolutionary pressures, which aren't random. "Adapt or die" is decidedly non-random. If an organism doesn't adapt well to its environment, it is much more likely to die (due to not finding food or being able to evade predators). The only random aspect of evolution is mutation, and those are a pure crapshoot.

Can you explain why things even evolve in the first place?Is there a scientific answer to that question? To me, it seems like a metaphysical question and science can never rule out metaphysics.

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Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

Actually, no, most atheists don't see blind random dumb luck. What they see is a response to evolutionary pressures, which aren't random. "Adapt or die" is decidedly non-random. If an organism doesn't adapt well to its environment, it is much more likely to die (due to not finding food or being able to evade predators). The only random aspect of evolution is mutation, and those are a pure crapshoot.

Can you explain why things even evolve in the first place?

He just did. I bolded it for you.

Quote

To me, it seems like a metaphysical question and science can never rule out metaphysics.

Ask a farmer. Generations are varied a bit from the previous generations. Variations that help them out in the environment they're in tend to become more prevalent. Variations that don't, don't. That's why populations evolve.

"Things" do not evolve, at least not in the sense of biological evolution. An individual organism does not evolve. Its population evolves, from one generation to the next. Even the most rabidly anti-knowledge fundamentalists usually at least acknowledge that this happens.

I already explained why things evolve. It's because they either adapt to environmental pressures (and more to the point, do so well enough that they can prosper), or they die. Note that this is on a species level - individual organisms within a species live and die all the time without affecting the survival of the species. Individual organisms also don't evolve, as Azdgari stated. It's populations that evolve.

Quote from: skeptic54768

Is there a scientific answer to that question?

Of course there is. Scientists describe the mechanics of evolution all the time.

Quote from: skeptic54768

To me, it seems like a metaphysical question and science can never rule out metaphysics.

The question of why things evolve is not at all metaphysical. I suppose the question of where life originally came from might be, but that's outside the scope of evolution

Meanwhile the process of science can be trusted to explain what it can based on the evidence available, and admit when it was wrong based on new evidence. Metaphysics and religion never admit to being wrong because they can't even explain to themselves when they are wrong.

Why is it so hard to understand the evolution of gears? Start with smooth surfaces, no contact. Then contact, with friction. Then rougher surfaces, with more friction. Then a deformity that acts as a notch, a mechanical advantage. Then more notches ... and so on.

Similar incremental processes have produced complex structures such as eyes and wings.

If you need to test a prediction that ancient fossils will be found to support the evolution of gears that's okay with me. Go for it - put the effort in. Just please take into account that thousands upon thousands of such predictions about intermediary fossil stages of almost every trait described in nature are continually cropping up. (So many that it's become a settled question in science.)

You are entitled to go out on a limb and say fossils of this particular trait won't be found - that could be the case - the fossil record was not designed for our edification. We know enough about the process of fossilisation to accept that we will not find every conceivable piece of the jigsaw puzzle through time. But how do you explain all the other missing links popping up routinely?

Or do you intend to gloat over one little straw available for you to clutch at temporarily - just because it's still a new discovery in science?

BTW in the field you won't find a single creation scientist toiling anywhere to not find these intermediary fossils - they only snipe away from the sidelines like annoying little opportunistic mosquitoes that contribute nothing - but fly away with a stolen droplet here and there to feed their useless parasitic kind a short lived propaganda meal.

That's silly though. Pink unicorns are physical entities that would be able to be proven. God is not physical. You can not use science to show God. Science is for physical.

This is why these analogies to the FSM and IPU are nonsense. None of those are spiritual entities. People claim the FSM is physically spaghetti and meatballs. But spaghetti and meatballs can not think and they take up space, so the FSM has been disproved. Unicorns can not think either. They are physical.

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Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

That's silly though. Pink unicorns are physical entities that would be able to be proven. God is not physical. You can not use science to show God. Science is for physical.

This is why these analogies to the FSM and IPU are nonsense. None of those are spiritual entities. People claim the FSM is physically spaghetti and meatballs. But spaghetti and meatballs can not think and they take up space, so the FSM has been disproved. Unicorns can not think either. They are physical.

Spoken like someone who doesn't know about the IPU or FSM. They can appear as physical entities, but their true forms are spiritual. Go ahead, disprove them. I'll wait.

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The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

Meanwhile the process of science can be trusted to explain what it can based on the evidence available, and admit when it was wrong based on new evidence. Metaphysics and religion never admit to being wrong because they can't even explain to themselves when they are wrong.

Why is it so hard to understand the evolution of gears? Start with smooth surfaces, no contact. Then contact, with friction. Then rougher surfaces, with more friction. Then a deformity that acts as a notch, a mechanical advantage. Then more notches ... and so on.

Similar incremental processes have produced complex structures such as eyes and wings.

If you need to test a prediction that ancient fossils will be found to support the evolution of gears that's okay with me. Go for it - put the effort in. Just please take into account that thousands upon thousands of such predictions about intermediary fossil stages of almost every trait described in nature are continually cropping up. (So many that it's become a settled question in science.)

You are entitled to go out on a limb and say fossils of this particular trait won't be found - that could be the case - the fossil record was not designed for our edification. We know enough about the process of fossilisation to accept that we will not find every conceivable piece of the jigsaw puzzle through time. But how do you explain all the other missing links popping up routinely?

Or do you intend to gloat over one little straw available for you to clutch at temporarily - just because it's still a new discovery in science?

BTW in the field you won't find a single creation scientist toiling anywhere to not find these intermediary fossils - they only snipe away from the sidelines like annoying little opportunistic mosquitoes that contribute nothing - but fly away with a stolen droplet here and there to feed their useless parasitic kind a short lived propaganda meal.

Basically you are saying that the gears evolved somehow. OK, that's a start.

Let's try and get to the meat and potatoes of this though.

How did the gears start to evolve? hat was the reason that these gears needed to start evolving? Was it an environmental change? Random?

If it was random, does that mean a human could randomly get a mutation to make him grow wings and fly? if you say humans have no reason to fly, then please explain the reason birds have for evolving flight and why these would not apply to humans.

I for one can think how much wings would help in our survival.

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Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)